


Each morning sun a new adventure

by Ellearem



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Definitely Happy Ending, Depression, Emotional Recovery, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, Love, Post-Season/Series 02, Show-typical mild violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29151324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellearem/pseuds/Ellearem
Summary: Din is no stranger to pain.  He’s been shot, he’s been stabbed, and he’s been beaten unconscious. He’s fallen from too high and broken bones too many times and more than once nearly lost his life for no good reason.But this… Watching the Jedi carry Grogu away...It feels like his heart is being yanked through his beskar, his deepest organs carved up and pulled out, his cells tearing themselves into pieces.And yet this is the way.Shame sweeps over him at the thought, cold and sickening, but he won't look away from Grogu's trusting eyes.  Not for Guild or Covert or Creed will he break that connection.  He’ll sacrifice all that he has, all that he is, for this child.---This is a post season-2 story of Din's journey through loss and hope, of his inward realizations and outward adventures, of meeting old friends and making new allies, with a guaranteed happy and hopeful ending that should help carry us over until we get Season 3.Story is completely written and will be posted weekly, 25K  in all.------
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Comments: 53
Kudos: 140
Collections: Noromo Mando: Mandalorian Genfics Collection





	1. The Aftermath

Din is no stranger to pain. He’s been shot, he’s been stabbed, he’s been beaten unconscious. He's fallen from too high and he's broken too many bones and he's nearly lost his life for no good reason.

But this...

Watching the Jedi carry Grogu away...

It's like having his heart yanked out through his beskar. Like his deepest organs carved up and pulled out, cells torn into pieces.

And yet this is The Way.

Shame sweeps over him at the thought, cold and sickening, but he won't look away from Grogu's trusting eyes. Not for Guild or Covert or Creed will he break that connection. He’ll sacrifice all that he has, all that he is, for this child.

When the Jedi steps into the elevator, Din glances down at the dark troopers laying severed and smoking on the floor, a trail of destruction worthy of Mandalorians of legend. 

But then Grogu is facing him again, and Din forces a smile that he hopes looks reassuring. _He’ll keep you safe,_ he tries to tell the kid with his expression, though he has no experience communicating this way. _We’ll see each other again._ _I promise we will._

The Jedi adjusts Grogu in his arms and Din finds his fingers twitching, reaching for a phantom weight that’s no longer his.

But then the elevator doors slam shut. The kid is gone.

Din draws in a shaking breath, too loud in the stifling silence. Heat floods his face, his body screams at him to move- _if the others walk over they’ll see-_ but he can’t do it. Can only watch the elevator lights carrying the child away.

“Who the hell was _that_?” asks Fennec.

“A good man,” Cara says. “He can protect the little guy. I’d stake our lives on it.”

She's trying to reassure him, he knows. But he doesn’t respond. The elevator lights have stopped moving, which means that the Jedi and Grogu have reached the hangar level. He could watch them leave, if he wanted. The security monitors are-

“The security records,” Din says, then cringes at his unfiltered voice, far too soft and too vulnerable without the modulator.

“Delete the security logs,” Cara orders, picking up on his concern. “Get rid of all evidence of that x-wing. Anything that could let anyone track him or the kid.”

They fall into conversation behind him, Bo-Katan and Koska and Fennec and Cara, but their concerns are distant and unimportant, his mind focused on what’s happening with the Jedi and the kid down in the hangar. 

Is the Jedi speaking to Grogu, like Ahsoka had? Can he reach into the child’s thoughts, as Din never could? Despite his violence, this Jedi had seemed oddly peaceful and strangely gentle. He’d even waited for Grogu to choose to leave; for Din to give his permission. Was he giving the kid reassurances as they climbed into the man’s ship? Was he telling him what Din had tried to say himself, that he’d be safe under his protection? Or was he-?

“Looks like he's not sticking around,” Fennec says.

Din turns in place, unthinking, to stare out the bridge’s windows. The others have their backs to him, watching the silver x-wing fly alongside the imperial cruiser. Its wings wobble as it passes- little hands probably grabbing the controls. The little womprat always was a handful in the cockpit. The Jedi will learn soon enough that he’ll need to-

“And there he goes,” Fennec adds, as the x-wing jumps to light-speed.

The finality of it knocks the breath from Din's lungs- _the kid is gone, he's gone!-_ and his gaze drops only to see Cara Dune kneeling by Gideon’s unconscious body on the floor. Unlike the others in the room, her full attention is on where Din stands, her eyes upon him- _on his face-_ their gazes meeting with a shock that has him stepping back as if struck.

She looks pained now, at whatever she sees, but before she can say anything Din shakes his head at her, already turning to pick up his helmet. She doesn't call after him as he strides from the room.

He's halfway down the corridor when Bo-Katan realizes he's gone. "We're not done here!”

“Let him go,” Cara tells her.

“This is _not_ the time to-"

“He just lost his kid, give him a few kriffing seconds!”

When Din reaches the elevator, he punches the buttons with a fist, swearing under his breath when the doors don’t open at once. He can’t deal with questions, can’t deal with sympathy, and he especially can’t deal with Bo-Katan and her quest for the darksaber.

He needs space, needs to think, needs to figure out what to do-

Behind him, he hears a pair of footsteps, a quick military march.

He lifts his helmet, then hesitates-

_Once you take it off…_

Swallowing down bile, Din pulls his helmet back on and steps into the elevator, punching the doors closed. 

He falls back against the wall with the voices of his Covert ringing in his head.

 _Coward._ _Creed-Breaker._ _Outcast._

He walks the ship's corridors with no conscious destination, stepping over dead soldiers and dissected dark troopers and blast marks left by the boarding party. The acrid stink of blood and smoke is everywhere, sour even through his helmet's filters.

Eventually he winds up in the ship’s hangar, staring in confusion at the stolen Imperial Shuttle. The ship has been moved clear of the launch tube, its journey marked by long deep gouges in the decking.

Din walks over to the jagged furrows and toes at unyielding durasteel. Even after all he’s seen Grogu and Ahsoka do, it’s difficult to grasp the Jedi doing this simply to make space for his x-wing to land. The casual demonstration of power is shocking. 

“Din Djarin, come in.” 

Din ducks his head and clenches his teeth, the sound of his true name broadcasting over the comm system. It’s an intentional cruelty- Bo-Katan exerting what power she can- and just like that, Din knows why he’s come here; what he wants to do.

“Din _Djarin_ ,” she repeats, irritated.

He answers her by striding up the Imperial shuttle’s open ramp.

It’s a two pilot ship, so he needs to reroute a few systems to fly it alone. He's just finishing up the adjustments and hitting the thrusters when the ship’s comm system crackles to life.

"You will set that ship down immediately,” Bo-Katan says, over other voices in the background. “This is not part of our deal.”

Din thinks of what she’d told him on Trask, and reaches over to trigger his mic. “This is the Way,” he tells her, and eases the ship into the launch tube.

She swears low and in Mando’a, then speaks to someone else on the bridge. “Get a lock on that ship the second it clears the tube!"

“The man wants to go,” Fennec says. "So let him go. Boba can transport the rest of us.”

“Is there a problem?” Boba Fett’s voice now, on the same channel.

Din activates his ship's comm. "I’m leaving.” 

“You have the child?” Boba asks.

Din grips the throttle hard enough that his fingers ache. _"_ No. But he’s safe.”

“Then our deal is complete?”

“Our deal is complete,” Din says, grateful for the ritual words of ending a contract. Fett understands Mandalorian culture as Bo-Katan never will. “You and Fennec have my gratitude.”

“Anytime, Mando,” Fennec says. “Boba, since we’re done here, I’ll grab a TIE fighter and-”

A screech of static interrupts her.

“Din Djarin,” Bo-Katan says sharply, and Din strangles back the urge to smash the comm with his fist because she keeps _announcing his name_. “You will turn that ship around, _now_ , or we will shoot out your engines and _tow_ you in.”

“Do that, Princess,” Boba says, “and I’ll blast a hole in your hull so big that I’ll be able to fly through it.”

“Just try it, old man,” Koska jumps in. “We'll shoot you from the stars without breaking a sweat.”

“Locking weapons,” Boba says. 

“Fine,” Koska snaps, “you want to play it that way?”

“Back away from that weapons board,” Fennec growls. "Your beskar doesn’t cover _all_ of you. And I never miss.”

There’s a chirp at Din’s ear, his private short range frequency. He tilts his head to trigger it, and hears Cara’s voice, muffled as if she’s covering her mouth as she speaks. “Get _out_ of here, will you?”

"You’ll be all right?”

“As soon as you get your beskar covered backside to light-speed, yeah. Another minute and they really are going to start shooting.”

“Thank you, for…” His throat closes on the words. Thank you for saving the kid’s life. Thank you for saving _mine._

“You have to go,” she says, urgent.

 _Until our paths cross_ , he thinks at her, because he still can’t speak. 

As he pulls the hyperdrive, it feels like running away.

It’s a two-hour jump to Erondun, an Outer Rim planet he’s never even heard of before.

It feels strange, being alone in hyperspace again. He keeps wanting to turn in his seat, to look over his right shoulder. Keeps expecting to hear a small voice, to feel tiny hands tugging at his cape. To listen for the squeak of the control knob being untwisted from its lever.

Din swallows past a lump in his throat and ducks his head, beskar helmet heavier than usual upon it. 

_Stop it_ , he tells himself, but the plea sounds desperate and weak even in his own head. _It’s over. It’s done. You need to get over this. You need to move on…_

Most of all, he needs to focus on his next destination. He needs to sell this piece of imp garbage for a ship that won’t get him blasted out of the sky. He also needs to pull up files on the planet’s Guild presence so he can make contacts. Needs to understand the economy and trade customs, so he can barter a good sale.

He doesn’t do any of it. 

Instead, he sits in silence, replaying those last precious moments on the bridge.

The kid’s eyes had been so _huge_ when Din had pulled off his helmet to look at him. There had been such _wonder_ , as if the child were seeing something far more beautiful than the beaten down face of a broken bounty hunter and failed Mandalorian.

All those times Din imagined what it would be like to be seen by another living being...

Never had he thought it would feel like love.

He dreams he’s in the Razor Crest’s pilot seat, watching the child happily chasing the control knob across the floor, moving back and forth as Din nudges the ship side to side.

Halfway through their game, his visor fogs up and blocks his view.

So Din takes it off and casts it aside.

The child laughs in delight and runs over to climb up his leg. When the beskar plating stops his progress Din strips it off both legs, does the same with his chest plate, then removes his shoulder pauldrons, casting them all to the floor.

“Better?” Din asks, and sweeps the child into his arms, his small body a warm pleasant weight upon his chest. 

“Eh,” the child says happily, and presses a tiny hand to Din’s cheek.

It’s just as soft and warm and beautiful as that day on the bridge, so much love pouring through the simple contact that tears clog his throat and tighten his chest.

He jolts awake in the pilot’s chair of the imp transport, hyperspace spinning around him.

The main continent of Erondun is a mess of fault lines and mountain ranges, its mining cities sprung up wherever the land is flat enough for ore processing and starports. It’s a low profit product, which means there’s no Imperial or New Republic presence to speak of.

The Guild usually thrives in such situations, and this one is no different. Din only needs to make one contact to get a half a dozen offers for the imp shuttle. He picks the highest one, then heads to coordinates at the outskirts of the city. The air is marginally more breathable there, though even here there’s so much red-tinted dust in the air that he has to land by instrumentation alone.

Once he lands, he takes his time picking the interior of the ship clean. From a locker of worthless imperial armor he selects a bag with a long strap that he can sling over his neck. Into it he puts blasters and explosives, rations bars and water packs. Pretty much anything he can use that isn’t nailed down.

As his bag grows heavy with contraband, he finds himself strangely relaxing.

It’s only when he glances down at his heavy satchel- and is surprised not to see large eyes looking back- that he understands why that is.

It’s a knife in his gut; has him drawing in a sharp breath, fighting back the grief. He strides to the wall, drives his fist into the durasteel, breathes through the pain.

“Sell the ship,” he growls, focusing on the pain radiating up his arm. "Get the credits. Buy another ship. Do the job.”

And it is a job, just like the thousands of others he's done.

Nothing interferes with the job. Not anymore. Not ever again.

When he gets the signal that his contact is close, Din descends the transport’s ramp into a thick red haze of ore particles that leaves a metallic taste in his mouth even through his helmet’s filter. A cloud of dust kicks up when he drops his bag of supplies. It’s already coating his armor as he walks a ways into the field, watching the shadowy shape of a box transport approach from a hazy row of hangar buildings.

The transport is larger than had been expecting as it stops a short distance away. When its doors open, two Gamorreans in body armor jump out, followed by two Trandoshans covered in underworld tribal tattoos on their lizard faces. His Guild contact is the last to emerge, a gaunt-faced man who had called himself Tracker.

“Nice ship,” Tracker says, as he ambles forward. There’s only a single blaster strapped to his leg. He’s not a fighter, but he is used to giving orders.

Din watches them spread out as they approach and barely resists the urge to sigh. Great. Another deal going bad. 

“Looks like new,” Tracker says. “How’d you get your hands on it?”

“Do you have the thirty thousand?” Din asks.

The man pulls a heavy pouch from his flight jacket. Jingles the metal credits. “Right here. Interested in doubling the payout?”

“No.”

“Come on, you haven’t even heard my offer.”

The Trandoshans and Gamorreans are fanning out to Din’s left and right, pretending as if they’re looking at his ship. 

He _really_ isn’t in the mood for this today. “Do you want the ship or not?”

“I like that spear of yours,” Tracker says, his thin lips pulling up into a smile. “Is that durasteel or beskar? I bet it’s beskar. I can offer you the going price.”

“Not for sale.”

“Your armor is pure beskar, too, isn’t it,” the man continues, with a hunger that Din knows too well.

Din shifts his weight and moves his hand closer to his blaster. A clear warning. “Honor our deal,” he says, low and dangerous, “and you can all still walk away.”

“No interest in selling anything at all?” Tracker asks, and actually nods left and right, giving away the position of his men behind him. 

Din sighs, loud enough for them to hear it. “Just do whatever you’re going to do. I don’t have all day.”

Tracker’s initial surprise shifts quickly into anger. He nods to Din’s left, sharp-

Din turns in that direction with blaster out and firing, hitting first the charging Trandoshan and then the Gamorrean, both of them falling hard with a cloud of dust.

A heavy weight crashes against Din’s back- the other Gamorrean- his thick hands knocking away Din’s blaster before closing around Din’s chest, hauling him into the air.

Din throws his head back- drives his beskar helmet into bone- and the Gamorrean shrieks and drops him. He lands with arm thrusting toward the other Trandoshan, steel cable shooting forward to wind around his legs. Din grabs hold of the cable, yanks it backward, and drops the flailing thug to the ground.

Blaster fire slams against the side of Din’s helmet, and as he turns, hits him hard in the chest plate. He shoves out his other arm, flamethrower spitting fire in Tracker’s direction, until an enraged squeal to his left warns him of the bloody-nosed Gamorrean’s second charge. 

The Trandoshan is back on his feet as well, both of them charging toward each other with Din in the middle. Before they reach him, Din ignites his jetpack and soars over their heads, landing with beskar spear in hand, to thrust it through the both of them as they collide together.

As he pulls his spear free, he discovers Tracker is making a run for it, a quickly receding hazy red shape jumping into his transport.

“Kriffing waste of my time,” Din mutters as he bends to grab his blaster. After wiping the blood from his spear on his cape, he stores his weapons and ignites his jetpack. 

He lands right in front of the transport, so close to the front window that Tracker startles in the driver’s seat.

“Honor our deal,” Din says, “and per the Guild’s Code, these events will be forgotten.”

A smart man would know Din means it. A smart man would take him up on his offer.

Tracker, however, is not a smart man.

When the man revs the transport, Din ignites the darksaber, sweeping the black blade through the vehicle’s mechanics, sending them sparking and sputtering into silence. Tracker screams as Din steps closer, shoving the tip of the blade right up against the man's chest, smoke rising around him and beskar armor bathed in the red glow of the air like some creature rising from the seven hells.

“Last chance,” Din says, and he means that too.

This time the man sees sense.

Once the sale is done, Din grabs his bag of possessions- including Tracker’s blaster- and slings it over his shoulder. After rummaging through it, he pulls out a small device, then walks it over to the imperial transport and slaps it on the side. 

“You have fifty-five seconds,” Din tells him. “Then the explosive will go off.”

“What?” Tracker chokes out. “But- I paid you for that ship!”

“And I sold it to you.” Din steps closer, making the man step back. “I never said I would let you keep it. Fifty seconds now. Start running.”

It’s a huge drain on the jetpack’s fuel to lift both him and his heavy bag into the air, but it gives him an excellent view of the imperial shuttle exploding, the fireball turning the air pink and orange and blood red as it raises into the air.

He lands near the edge of the factory district and takes his time asking the locals where he can buy a ship. After visiting several bars, he keeps hearing the name ‘Alden’s Place’, where he supposedly can get a fair deal and good ship.

Good is apparently a very subjective word, because Din winds up walking through more of a scrap yard than a shipyard, dozens of beat-up commercial and private ships parked everywhere, amid stacks of loose parts and half built equipment, old droids wandering freely around the place.

“A Mandalorian,” says the old man who approaches him, so thin that a strong wind could blow him over. “Well. Never thought I’d see the day. Name’s Alden. How can I help?”

“I need to buy a ship.”

“Straight to business, eh?” the man says, with a coarse laugh full of the dust that pollutes the air. “In that case, let me show you around. Not sure my inventory will meet your needs though.”

“I just need something with a functioning hyperdrive.”

“Looking to get somewhere that isn’t here, is it?”

“Yes,” Din sighs out, and watches the old man tilt his head curiously, most likely because Din is slouching, his head ducked, even the weight of the bag pulling down one shoulder. He’s exhausted, it’s true, but he hadn’t realized that it showed so much. 

The old man puts a hand on Din’s shoulder pauldron. It should make him tense, but it doesn’t, which is worrying. “I may have something for you, young man.”

“Young man?” Din repeats. 

“Unless you’re my age, you’re a young man,” the man tells him with a smile, and leads Din past more battered ships, to a back corner of a field near the durasteel building Alden must use as his office. 

Beside it is an Incom personal cruiser, a triangular ship with a glass domed cockpit in front, boxy passenger cabin in the middle, triangle wings stretching out to each side, modest engines mounted beneath them. 

“Twenty thousand and it’s yours,” Alden tells him.

It takes Din a moment to realize the man is talking about the _cruiser_. It’s a ridiculous suggestion- this is an _old person_ ship for pleasure cruises. “I’m a _bounty hunter._ If I showed up for a job in this thing, I’d be laughed off the planet.”

“People laugh at Mandalorians, do they?” Alden asks, wry.

“More often than you think.” 

“You’re joking now. Have to be. Laughing at a Mandalorian… You’d have to have your head up your own backside.”

Din smiles, turning to study the old man. He really wants Din to buy the ship, and not just to make a sale. Alden cares about who takes ownership, which means he cares about the ship as well. "Is this your ship?”

Alden nods. “Used to take the family on trips to the core worlds in it. It’s been a while, though, since…” His voice trails off, and he scratches at the side of his face with dirty fingers, before looking back at Din with a forced smile. “There’s two bunks inside and lots of storage space. Plenty of room in the passenger cabin, though you could use it for cargo… Unless you have-?”

“No,” Din says. “No, I… I don’t.” 

“Well then. As I said. Cargo.” 

Din puts his hands on his hips and studies the ship. He has to admit it has potential. A new layer of plating, some ion canons, swap out the engines... "What’s the designation?”

“The Morning Sun. Our kids picked out the name. They said it’s the sign of a new adventure.”

“Morning Sun,” Din repeats. Yes. That’ll work.

“If you're interested in buying, you can change the register,” Alden says, though it clearly pains him to offer. 

"Twenty thousand, you said?"

"If that's too high-"

“I'll take it," Din tells him. “And I’ll be keeping the name.”


	2. The Path

“Best ship of the lot…” Din slams his fist into the Morning Sun’s control panel, two flickering sensor lights going out at the impact.

No way this ship is ready for deep space. He’s not even pushing into Erondun’s upper atmosphere yet and his engines are whining and his thrusters are misfiring and the acrid smell of overheated wiring fills the cabin. 

At least the comms function, letting him send a landing request to the planetary air traffic droid. He really needs a wide field to safely land- the sluggish control yoke has him lurching all over the place- but of kriffing course he gets directed to the largest starport in the biggest city instead. It’s got a stupidly small central open hub and twenty suicidally narrow open-air landing bays radiating off it. 

“You are _kidding_ me,” Din says, and triggers his comms. “Control, I need-” Din jerks hard to port, nearly clipping two transports leaving the ground. 

“Incom Cruiser, repeat your request.”

“I need a new landing site,” Din snaps at the droid.

“Erondun Starport is the designated arrival location for all private cruiser class vehicles.”

“I’m _not_ a private cruiser-“

"Clear to land at Bay Fifteen, Incom Cruiser," the droid says, and ends the transmission.

Din swears and cuts his engines, the metal deck plates rattling up through his boots at the deceleration. It’s a wrestling match to maneuver the ship so it hovers over his assigned bay. His forearms ache and his palms are sweaty beneath his gloves by the time he begins his descent. "Come on... Almost there... That’s it..."

To his surprise, he manages to set down with only a slight rocking of his squeaking landing gear. “There," he sighs out. "That’s more-“

The backfire of his port engine cuts him off, smoke billowing past the cockpit as another follows.

Out in the open hangar area, mechanics and pilots start to gather around, most of them laughing, a few of them applauding, all of them mocking him or his ship or both.

 _‘You’d have to have your head up your backside to laugh at a Mandalorian,’_ Alden had said.

Maybe it’s time he reminds them all of that.

He takes his time getting ready. It’ll let an even larger crowd gather. Sure enough, when he opens the landing ramp, applause and mockery in myriad languages echoes up to him. Quite a crowd, then. Good.

He takes his time marching down the gangplank, boots falling heavy on the metal, jet pack mounted on his back, his armor coated with red ore dust like blood. With every other step he slams his staff into the metal grating, the beskar ringing like an executioner’s bell. 

By the time he reaches the duracrete floor, it’s deathly silent.

Din lifts his spear, then drives it hard into the duracrete. The floor cracks loudly beneath the impact.

He can’t help but smile as the crowd scatters like bilge rats, though he’s careful not to move at all. Normally he’d go looking for the hangar crew. Today he’ll stand and wait for them to come to him.

“How can we help you?”

Din yanks his spear from the duracrete, turning to address an older mechanic in a blue jumpsuit. Two younger men stand with him, neither old enough to shave, both with the same dark eyes and hair.

Brothers, Din thinks. This man must be their father. He can see the resemblance in they eyes, if not in his grey hair. “My ship needs repairs,” he tells the group. “I need it ready today for deep space travel.”

“Is he kidding?” one of the man’s sons murmurs to the other.

“Boys,” the older mechanic says sternly, and the two duck their heads but exchange an incredulous glance. “Recent purchase, is it?” the man asks Din.

“Yes.”

“I bet it must have sat in a while in the lot before you got it,” the man goes on, studying his ship. “Incoms are built well, but their engines get temperamental if they aren’t run. Might need some new parts. Tune up of the control timing belts. Check out the-”

“I have ten thousand credits,” Din interrupts, because his head is starting to ache. He’s lost count of the days since he’s gotten any decent sleep. “Is that enough?”

“Should be. We’ll run a diagnostic to be sure. Let you know if it’ll be more. That sound fair, Mister Mandalorian?”

Din gets stuck on the ‘ _Mister Mandalorian’._ It’s been years since anyone’s spoken to him with respect without a weapon pointed at their head. “Deal. Payment before or after?”

“After’ll be fine. Boys, go on and set up-“

“Your Incom diagnostic system, right-“

“And the custom spanner kit, we know, we know…“

The mechanic only smiles at the insolence. Definitely family, Din finds himself thinking. Only family gets a smile like that. “Will…” Din frowns at himself; tries to focus. “When will it be done?”

“End of day, most like. Might be earlier. You can call and check in. Ask the scheduling droid to patch you through to Jern. That’s me.”

“I’ll stay,” Din says, and when the old man gives him a startled look, he adds: “If… that’s not a problem.”

“No problem,” Jern says quickly. “I don’t have much by way of a waiting area, though. Just a beat-up old couch outside my office. You’re welcome to it.”

“That’s fine.” 

Jern doesn’t answer, still obviously looking Din up and down, in that way people sometimes do when they forget that Din is watching them too. 

“Thank you,” Din adds, to get things moving.

Jern huffs out a laugh. “Well. That’s...”

“What?”

“You know, I’ve never actually met a real Mandalorian. I heard the stories, of course. You’re… Not what I expected you to be.”

 _Neither am I_ , Din thinks, and his own savage bitterness catches him off guard. He turns away from the man’s undeserved admiration, to where the younger mechanics are setting up equipment. “Are those your sons?” he hears himself ask, and then straightens in surprise. What is _wrong_ with him today? 

“That’s two of my boys,” Jern is saying to him proudly. “I have another younger one at home. Plus two daughters, running the show over there at Bay Ten.”

“That’s a full repair crew,” Din says, trying to find a way to end this conversation. He’s starting to feel dizzy, holding onto the spear for support. He really needs to sit down-

“My boys are better than their old man with ships, too, which is all a father could ask. Maybe you know that already, though, yeah? Do you have children?”

It’s a sucker punch, Din’s breath knocked from him, grief slicing like a blade through his ribs as the answer tries to press its way through his clenched teeth.

_Yes, I had a child._

_I had a child but now he’s gone_.

_He meant everything and now I have nothing because I wasn’t good enough._

He doesn’t remember if he answers, just finds himself striding away toward a darkened hangar alcove, fingers aching as he grips his spear, driving the metal into the duracrete with every other step, leaving cracks not half as deep as the chasm in his heart.

He dreams he's standing in Grogu’s cell.

This time he's trapped in his armor, body frozen and helpless, as Gideon waves the darksaber over the kid’s head.

Grogu is looking to him for help, desperate and afraid and about to die, but Din can do nothing; can only watch as the darksaber moves closer and closer to the child's flattening ears-

“Hey, Mister!”

Din's whole body jerks, his boots kicking against duracrete, his arm shoving forward with flamethrower ready, his blaster out of its holster and lifting-

"Dad!" a young voice yelps, and the name locks Din's muscles tight, the urge to shoot gone in a wash of cold sweat, because it's the mechanic's son, startled and stumbling back onto his father's desk, data pads and tools clattering to the floor.

Din draws in a deep shuddering breath, his pulse thumping in his ears and his heart beating hard against his ribs, his panic from the dream only growing stronger as he realizes that he fell asleep in public- that he nearly killed an innocent kid- that he was pointing his blaster at him still-

“Don’t shoot!” Jern shoves himself in front of his son and flings his arms wide. "Please!"

"Easy," Din says, and holsters his weapons. "It's all right," he adds, and realizes he's talking to himself more than them, because he still can't stop himself shaking.

Jern rounds on his boy, furious. "What did I tell you, Kaylen? I said not to startle him! You almost got yourself shot!”

“ _No, it-"_ Din tries to get up but sits back down hard. His legs are asleep, because- kriffing hells- he's been sleeping sitting up for five hours. Anyone could have slit his throat and stolen his armor. Anything could have happened. "It was my fault,” he says, stamping his boots as painful sensation returns, anger at his stupidity giving him the strength to shove himself to his feet. Dizziness sweeps over him at once, his vision darkening and his skull throbbing. He has to grab his beskar spear to balance himself.

“Are you all right?” Jern asks, and the man actually looks worried, which is a consideration Din doesn't deserve with the man's son pale and cowering behind him.

"Is my ship..." Din squeezes his eyes closed. Shakes his head to try and clear it. "Are the repairs done?”

“Yes, it's... We just finished. That’s what I sent Kaylen to tell you…” Jern's face pales this time, and Din recognizes the sick expression. The guilt of a father endangering his son.

Din pulls out his pouch of credits. “We said ten thousand.”

“We didn’t do enough work to justify that sort of-“

“That was our deal,” Din interrupts, in the voice he reserves for bounties, the voice that holds the promise of weapons and blood and death. 

It works far too well with Jern and his son, both of them moving aside to let Din dump out the credits on Jern's desk. Neither of them says a word as he walks away, which has Din slowing his pace until he finally stops only a few steps away.

He doesn’t want to leave things like this. Doesn’t want to exchange respect with hostility. Such things never bothered him, long ago. But ever since the kid…

“Consider it... a thank you for your hospitality," Din says, without turning around. "And an apology. For the trouble I caused.”

It’s nothing that a real Mandalorian would say.

But then, he’s not a real Mandalorian.

The Morning Sun soars into the planet’s stratosphere like a new ship, all thrusters firing and the engines rumbling steadily. When he reaches the starry blackness of space, he tries a few basic maneuvers and discovers the controls are satisfyingly responsive. 

It’s still like flying a stranger’s ship, and it feels nothing like the Razor Crest. That ship had been in his life for so long that. He’d known every instrument panel, had repaired every storage compartment, could count every dent and every scratch in the metal. He’d fought in it, he’d bled in it, and he’d nearly died in it multiple times. It was home.

And now it was gone.

All of it gone…

“Better view, though,” Din says, overloud, into the silence.

Unlike the Crest, the Morning Sun’s transparasteel cockpit bubble is uninterrupted. There’s no support beams or raised instrument panels to break the view. 

It’s probably breathtaking, actually, though he has no way of knowing. 

His helmet, as usual, blocks most of the view.

So many times he’s nearly gotten himself killed flying on instruments. So many ship-to-ship battles he could have used his peripheral vision to gain advantage. And the older he gets- the more damage his body takes- the harder it becomes to twist around in his chair to see his panels. 

One of these days he’s going to die because the beskar is in the way. 

_‘Better to die than to expose your true face during battle’_ , the others in the Covert had said, the day he’d asked whether he needed to wear his helmet if he was flying alone. ‘ _Better to die than to shame your tribe by breaking the Creed!’_

_Better to die…_

He’d wanted to, very much, after asking that question. He’d carried the shame of it for a long time. One of his friends had shunned him, and another never stopped questioning his loyalty. Still others challenged him with words and fists and knives. He bears scars from those skirmishes still.

All that for one simple question.

Was it any wonder he stopped asking any questions at all?

For a long time, Din sits and stares silently at the sparkling field of stars. 

Then he lifts his gloved hands, cups the sides of his helmet, and lifts it away.

Cool air moves over his bare cheeks as he blinks against the ship’s artificial lights. He draws in a breath- smells motor oil and cleaning fluids- then lets it out, listening to the rich resonance of the engines. 

And then he tilts back his head and gasps.

The view through the glass dome is _breathtaking_.

Starry space encompasses him in its embrace, entirely filling his peripheral vision, as if he’s floating untethered with no ship around him. The universe opened up in all directions.

A wave of vertigo surprises him, bending him forward so that his elbows land hard upon his leg plating. His stomach is cramping like he wants to be sick- or like he’s starving, more likely. 

_Food and sleep_ , he thinks. _That’s what I need. Food and sleep._

For the first time in years, Din leaves the navigating to the ship’s computer, telling it to plot a safe sublight course to the nearest system, and then climbing unsteadily from the pilot’ seat.

When he reaches the ship’s hold, he heads straight for the sleeping area, unlocking a bunk from the wall and letting it drop down at waist height.

Din stares at it dumbly for a long moment, because the sleeping rack on the Crest had been _nothing_ like this. It’s not just a shelf, it’s an actual _bed_ , its mattress thicker than he’s slept on in a while, long and wide enough to accommodate his body even stretched out. It’s even got sheets and a blanket, wrapped under sanitizing plastic.

The idea of sleeping on something so indulgently cushy should repulse him. All his life he’s slept on dirt and duracrete and steel.

Din pulls off his glove. Presses a palm to the plastic. When he leans his weight on the mattress, it molds itself around his fingers, enveloping around each one like an embrace.

“Kriffing hell,” he breathes.

Then he starts yanking away beskar.

There’s a ritual to removing his armor. A ritual that he’s performed since he was a child. He should be reciting the tenets of the Creed as he loosens weapons belts and munitions. He should be paying respects to his tribal elders as he removes his armor plating. Once he’s down to his padding and flight suit he should examine and repair every contact that holds his armor. When he’s done he should clean and respectfully store his armor.

Instead he’s yanking away plating like a frantic foundling, needing to feel the softness of the mattress-

Soft like the kid’s fingers on his cheek-

Din grunts as he wrestles off his chest cuirass, staggers as he pulls off cape and carapace, and nearly falls when he pulls off his boots. He swears and fumbles them off with shaking hands, then pulls off his flight suit until he’s only in cloth shirt and trousers. 

When he pulls the plastic wrappings from the mattress- _oh, stars above_ \- the sheets and blanket are softer than he imagined, but it’s nothing- absolutely nothing at all- to how the mattress yields beneath his knees as he climbs upon it, or the way it engulfs his body when he drops face first to the bedding.

A broken groan comes from his throat as he stretches out his aching legs, his cheek rubbing against the pillow, his weight sinking into the mattress and the padding molding itself around to his body, just like he thought it would.

 _An embrace_ , Din thinks. Yes... That’s what this is.

Like the feeling of holding the kid in his arms.

Din jolts awake with panic slamming into his chest. He’s not in his armor- He’s not in his bed- He’s not on his ship-

“Kid!” he shouts and sits up so quickly that he nearly falls out of bed.

But then he remembers. The kid is gone.

He falls back to the mattress, palms pressing to his bare face a long moment, before he threads his fingers through his hair, pulling. 

_He’s safe,_ he tells himself. _Safe and with his people where he belongs. The Jedi will protect him. He’ll do what you couldn’t. What you were too stupid to do._

Din winces at the thought, because he shouldn’t dwell on the past. Even though he’d trained all his life to look forward- looking back got you killed in battle after all- he can’t stop dwelling on what’s happened. 

One stupid mistake after another had put the kid in danger. One bad decision after the next had nearly gotten them both killed. 

If only he hadn’t left Grogu alone at the Seeing Stones. If only he’d checked his ship for tracking devices. If only he’d taken the kid and run off to the Core Worlds where the Imps weren’t as powerful... If only…

Din stares at the ship’s ceiling, thoughts churning and spinning in circles, stuck in a gravity well. 

He knows he should stop thinking like this. That he should get out of bed. That he should plan his next destination. 

And yet…

There’s no child to keep safe and no quest to complete. There’s no Covert waiting to welcome him back. No reason for him to get up. No idea where to go even if he had one. He can’t even muster the strength to get his thoughts in order. Every time he tries to think of what to do, things slip away like sand.

 _I must be sick,_ he thinks. _I just need to sleep. That’s all._

Din pulls the blankets over his head and yields into darkness, relaxing into the embrace of the bed.

The day passes with him leaving the bed only to tend to the barest biological functions, forcing down rations bars and water before returning to uneasy dreams.

And the next day is similar, except that sleep starts to elude him.

Sometime in the middle of the night he realizes that this is the longest he’s gone without wearing his armor.

Strange that it doesn’t bother him more.

He’s just waking up the next day, thoughts sluggish and that strange weight still upon him, when the ship’s proximity alarm goes off.

Habit does what he hadn’t managed, propelling him from his bed and sending him running through the ship to the doorway of the cockpit. His hands slap against the frame and hold tight.

Because there are x-wings flying alongside the Morning Sun.

“Incom Cruiser, do you copy?”

Din shoves himself forward and into the pilot’s chair, to activate the comm system. “This is Incom Cruiser,” he says, even as his brain is yelling that _he has no weapons- he has no decent engines-_ _he’s not even wearing his armor if they decide to board his ship_ -

“Incom Cruiser, we noticed your transponder isn’t emitting. This sector is under New Republic jurisdiction, and-“

“Transmitting,” Din says and flicks the beacon. 

As it sends, he realizes that he never asked Alden for the ship’s records. For all he knows, Alden could have been smuggling Rhydonium on the side. Why the hell didn’t he ask for ship’s records-?

“All clear, Morning Sun,” the x-wing pilot says. “Keep that beacon active. We wouldn’t want to confuse you with someone who’s actually a threat.” Laughter crackles over the coms. “Safe journey and may the Force be with you.”

Din doesn’t respond. Just sits and watches dumbly as the x-wings peel off.

 _Someone who’s actually a threat_ , he thinks.

His stomach lurches, savage and urgent, and Din only barely makes it through the ship and into the refresher, before heaving up the contents of his stomach. 

The gut-clenching shame takes a while to pass, and when it does he’s left feeling hollowed out to his bones. He gets up and reaches for a cloth to wash his face, only to drop it behind the door. With a muttered swear, he pushes it shut, only to come face to face with his own reflection.

On the Razor Crest he’d only kept an old hand mirror for shaving, its surface foggy with age. The Morning Sun’s full length mirror is like looking at a life-sized vid of himself, one Din doesn’t recognize.

He watches his dark brows pull together into a frown, his shaking hand lifting to rub over unkempt stubble and mustache growth, before sliding through dark hair flattened to his head. 

_Old_ , Din thinks, as he watches the lines pull deep around his brown eyes and above his brow, his mouth pulling down into an unhappy line. He looks _old_. Old and worn down and tired and broken. 

“No,” Din murmurs, his eyes narrowing with anger, and _there_ \- _yes_ \- _that_ man looks familiar. He can see himself now, in the aggression that balls his hands into fists, and in the rage filling out his chest with deep heaving breaths, and in the fury that has him striding forward. 

With a shout he drives his fist into the mirror, shattering his reflection into countless pieces.

It’s calming, cleaning up the damage.

It reminds him of the rituals that had formed his childhood in the Fighting Core: Rituals around the forge and with the Covert Elders; ceremonies marking his achievements and battles; rites of passage to plot out the phases of his life. 

This feels like a rite of passage too, somehow. Something is changing. Something is different. He doesn’t yet know what.

When his work cleaning the ship is finished, he does the same with himself. He washes his clothing and then washes himself, shaving by feel and making sure his hair isn’t too long. 

When he dresses he murmurs the familiar tenets of his Creed. As he tenderly gathers his armor he repeats his Oaths. 

After pulling the blankets up over his bunk he lays out all the pieces of beskar in their proper order, then adds his holsters, weapons, and ammunition. He’s careful as he inspects and repairs each component, taking mental notes of the tools he’ll need to resupply that he lost on the Crest.

“There is no honor for the self,” Din recites, as he wipes away red ore dust and blood from his chest cuirass. “There is only honor for the tribe. There is no fear of death. There is only redemption.”

Once, not long ago, he had been a man who lived by a strict Creed. A bounty hunter who did the job with bravery and with honor. He’d lived many years as that man, before Nevarro and the Client and the Child.

He can be that man again. He knows it. He can.

Piece by piece Din puts himself back together. Boots and weapons cartridges. Leg holsters and knives. Hip holsters and thigh plates. Arm vambraces and flight gloves. Chest cuirass and weapons belts. 

“Our secrecy is our strength,” Din continues, picking up a shoulder pauldron. “Our strength is our hope for…” 

Beneath his gloved fingertips is the signet of Clan Mudhorn. 

Grief scratches and claws at his chest like a relentless, bloodthirsty beast.

This time, Din is vicious in fighting it back.

 _Stop_ , he tells himself, and squeezes the pauldron so tightly that pain stabs into his knuckles. _You did what you promised. You completed your task. You delivered the child to his people where he belongs and where he’s safe. You’ll see him again because you promised you would. But you can’t keep your word if get yourself killed._

“Our strength,” Din repeats, and locks the shoulder pauldron into place, “is our hope… for the future. Our future…” He picks up the other pauldron, and locks it into place. “…is our survival.”

All that’s left is his helmet. Din picks it up, ducking his head to rest his forehead against it .

“There is no going back,” he says. “There is only moving forward. This is the way.”

Easing the helmet onto his head feels like coming home. The world is focused through his visor, no distractions and no noise, just the task ahead. 

He adjusts his weapons belts, checks everything is in place-

In his pocket is the round shape of the control knob. His fingers close around it, withdraw it so he can hold it up in front of his visor.

“There is only moving forward,” he says, and his voice through the modulator is strong, and confident, just like he remembers. 

After a deep breath, he walks over to the supply closet, places the control knob into the box with his vital supplies, and closes the door on it and on the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adventures start beginning for our bounty hunter next chapter... plus the return of familiar faces. :)
> 
> Be sure to leave a Kudo if you're enjoying the story. Thanks!


	3. The Quarry

It’s a quick jump through hyperspace to the nearest planet with an active Guild. Din uses the time to eat as many rations bars as he can stomach and follows them with a few nutrient drinks to regain the strength he’d lost during his…

Well. ‘Sickness’ is as good a word as any. 

When Din jumps out of hyperspace, his new ship shuddering and unfamiliar, the industrialized planet of Noro’ath looms in the cockpit bubble. 

He pulls up the planetary overview. Is unimpressed by what he sees. “A few oceans but mostly continents,” he says aloud. “Megacities everywhere, heavy pollution, corporate control... Huh. A few more centuries and it’ll be no better than the Core Worlds. No idea why people want to live like that, all crammed in together like… What were those fish called that the frog lady ate, kid?”

Din glances over his shoulder at an empty seat.

He turns swiftly back to the viewport. 

Right. No more talking to himself in the cockpit. He never used to do that before. He can be that way again.

“Just like before,” Din says, then winces. “ _Dank ferrik_ ,” he adds, and wants to hit himself in the helmet.

“Incom Private Cruiser,” says the planetary air control droid. 

Din slaps open his comm channel. “I’m _not_ a private cruiser!”

“Incom Private Cruiser, you’re cleared to land in Ithi-Corp City, Hangar Fifty-Two.”

Din almost punches the control panel he’d just paid ten thousand credits to fix. “I really need to hit something,” he grumbles- _after just swearing not to talk to himself again_ \- and then bangs his arm vambrace hard against his helmet, the beskar ringing through his thick skull. 

“Are you old enough to run a Guild Chapter?” Din asks, as he approaches the table in the grimy cantina where his contact had asked to meet. 

The kid is less than half his age, his face still rounded with youth, with acne dotting his patchy blond beard. “Sounds like something an old man would say,” the kid tells him, giving a cocky grin that reminds Din unpleasantly of Toro Calican. “Are you an old man? Can’t really tell with that helmet in the way. Is that real beskar?”

“You said you have a job,” Din asks.

The kid gestures to the seat opposite him.

Din pulls out his spear and sits down, spear held in his left hand, blaster close to his right. Something about the kid is putting him off besides his age. He’s not sure yet what it is.

“I see you’re the trusting type,” the kid says, laughing.

“I get the job done.”

“Good, because this one’s a challenge.”

Din takes the bounty puck that’s slid across the table and triggers the holo. The image of a middle-aged human male appears, thin and average looking with neat dark hair, dressed in the same business uniforms worn all over this megacorp city. 

“Argen Baronett,” the kid says. “Guilty of stealing ten million credits' worth of goods from his employer.”

“Corporate theft,” Din says, disgusted. “Don’t you have anything more challenging?”

“It’s been three months since the bounty was issued, and not a single hunter can find him. I’d call that plenty challenging. The guy’s employer at Ithi-Corp wants him bad and wants the weapons he stole even more.”

“So he’s an arms dealer.”

“He’s an accountant.”

Din stares at him in response. If he waits long enough, people usually keep talking, and this kid is no exception.

“Look, I don’t know what he was going to do with them. All I care about is that his boss just doubled the bounty to fifteen thousand. You interested or what?”

“It’ll cost twenty,” Din tells him.

“I just told you it’s fifteen.”

“You said he doubled the bounty. The original number was ten. So my price is twenty.”

“That’s-“ The kid glares at him. “I need my share of the take.”

“Good luck finding him,” Din tells him, and gets up.

“Wait,” the kid says, then looks around at the nearby patrons who have turned to look at him. “Fine, twenty thousand, but only if you get the guy _and_ the stolen arms.”

“Twenty thousand, and I’ll bring back the quarry and the stolen arms, and you’re paying half up front.”

“Half up front!”

Din shrugs and starts walking away.

“All right, deal!” the kid yells.

Din smiles to himself before he turns. 

Some days he _really_ loves his work.

Corporate crime is bottom-of-the-barrel work in his book. But in this case, the kid is right. This quarry is a challenge.

Baronett is exceptionally skilled at hiding in plain sight, using his average looks, his intelligence, and his computer skills to stay off the grid as he moves around, even making friends to cover his tracks as he goes.

Oddly enough, none of Baronett’s contacts are underworld. They’re all shop owners and school teachers and medical professionals. Din’s had to shift tactics, resorting to falsifying comm transmissions and tricking people into disclosing information.

It’s not how he prefers working, but it has yielded an address.

He waits until the Noro’ath suns are low, then uses his jetpack to fly directly into the run-down neighborhood, landing on a long roof that connects a series of row homes. They’re deserted and dark, just like the row of homes in the next block over, where he’ll find his quarry.

This whole block is scheduled for demolition to make way for more corporate offices, but Din hides in the shadow of a stone chimney just to be safe. 

His target should appear any minute.

The suns dip lower, dusk growing and shadows deepening-

That’s when he sees it. Movement in the middle house in the next block. Din triggers his infrared- At this distance it’s a blur- But it’s definitely in the right location. His quarry.

He ignites his jetpack and propels himself up, arcs over the backyards, and crashes through the second-story window.

High-pitched screams follow as he uses the jetpack thrusters to stay on his feet, glass shattering beneath his boots as he pulls his blaster.

“I give up!”

Din whirls in place. Points a blaster at his quarry- but also at two young boys who the man is grabbing and shoving behind him. 

“I’ll go with you!” Argen shouts. “Just please don’t hurt my boys!” 

Another scream, this one enraged, and a ten-year-old boy runs out from the adjoining room, pushing past his father, charging straight at Din. “Leave us alone!” he shouts, Din staggering back as the boy throws himself forward to pound against Din’s chest, fists balled and face red and furious.

“Jeron, stop!” Argen runs forward and grabs his son by the shirt, trying to pull him backward. 

“You can’t take him!” the boy yells at Din, fingers clinging to Din’s thigh plating, pulling him stumbling forward. “He didn’t do anything!”

In the chaos, the other two smaller boys charge Din as well, pushing past their frantic father to kick at Din’s legs and punch wherever they can reach.

“That’s enough!” Din yells, grabbing one boy by the shirt and pulling him away, then holstering his blaster to grab the other by the arm.

Argen wraps an arm around one of the boys and pulls him backward, Din pushing the other at his father, and in the chaos, the older boy rushes forward, tugs at Din’s leg, and when Din looks down his blaster is gone.

“I’ll shoot you!” the boy shouts and points the gun straight at Din’s chest.

“Jeron!” Argen chokes out. “No!”

“I will!” Jeron yells, frantic. “I’ll shoot!”

Din looks from blaster muzzle to his chest plating to the ricochet direction-

 _Oh, no- kriffing hell no please no_ \- 

A crib is in the line of fire. A crib _with a baby inside it_.

“I yield!” Din roars, and drops to his knees, arms out wide. “I yield! I _yield_!”

It shocks the room silent, only the sniffling and panting of the small boys and their father disturbing it, Din’s breathing so loud in his helmet that it’s all white noise.

“Jeron,” Din breathes, focusing on the child holding the blaster to his chest. “That’s your name, isn’t it? Jeron?”

The boy’s knuckles are white. Far too tight on the sensitive weapon.

“You win, Jeron. I yield. All right? Now… Just put down the blaster-“

“No!” The boy steps closer, the blaster inches from Din’s armor. “You’ll take my dad!”

“If you fire that blaster, you’ll kill the baby,” Din interrupts sharply. “My armor is beskar. Blaster fire ricochets off of beskar. It will hit the crib. Follow the angle. From the blaster muzzle to the chest plating. From the chest plating to the corner. It will go that way. Over there. See?”

When the boy glances over, Din lunges forward, grabbing the weapon and hitting the floor hard on his back.

“You tricked me!” He scrambles after Din, still trying to get the weapon. “You liar!”

“Jeron, stop!“ Argen grabs the boy’s shirt and yanks him backward, grabbing for his other sons to pull them away, all of them falling in a tangle next to the bed where the family has clearly been sleeping. “Jeron, Arvel, Treya- All of you- Stop this!”

From the corner of the room, the baby lets out a little cry. 

Din is up and on his feet and moving at once. He has to be see the child is all right- He needs to know more than he needs his next breath-

“Please don’t hurt the baby!” Argen cries out, anguished.

Din turns from the crib, shocked at the suggestion.

And then, feeling sick, shocked at _himself_. Because once, not very long ago, he’d been paid to do exactly that. 

“No, I-“ Din backs away, shaking his head. “I won’t,” he says, and drops himself to his knees again, lacing his gloved hands behind his helmet. It’s as harmless as he can be, with ammunition and explosives strapped to his body, flamethrowers ready to fire from his vambraces, jetpack still warm upon his back. “I won’t hurt him,” Din says again, and means it. “I _won’t_.”

Argen just stares at him, his boys clinging to his sides, all of them too afraid to go help the baby who now is unhappily working himself into tears. 

“I know what it’s like,” Din tells the man, the words spilling out without his permission. “I know how it feels to have a child in danger. To know there’s people who want to hurt him. And I swear to you. I’m not like them.” 

Din thinks of standing by IG-9’s side after shooting his way to get to the asset. About staring down at the child in his pram with the killer droid at his side. 

He made a choice then, and it had been the right one.

It’s time to make that choice again.

“I’m not like them,” Din says, and lowers his arms. “And if you’ll let me… I’d like to help.”

Din stands guard by the broken window as the family packs. 

His infrared isn’t showing any activity in the backyards or nearby buildings. Still, he’d made a spectacle of himself when he’d arrived. It’s worrying how many blind spots there are in all these buildings.

“Are all Mandalorians like you?” asks a small voice.

Din looks over at where Jeron sits himself down with his back to the bed. The boy is wary but curious, brave but foolhardy. He would make a good Mandalorian. “What do you mean, ‘like me’?”

“Scary on the outside but nice on the inside.”

Din huffs out a laugh. Nice on the inside. Right. That’s an interesting way to describe the mess of who he is.

“You see?” Jeron asks. “Right there. You laugh just like my dad. You said you’re a dad too, right? How many kids do you have? Do they wear armor like yours?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” Din mutters.

“You don’t answer them,” Jeron says. “Why don’t you? My dad says it’s rude not to answer if a person asks you a question.”

“Shouldn’t you be helping your father pack?”

“I’m packed already,” the boy says, nodding to the depressingly small bag sitting by his side.

It’s even more evidence of what Din should have guessed by now. Din’s quarry, this man Argen Barronet, was guilty of only one thing: Growing a conscience. He’d discovered his employer was selling weapons to the Imperials and diverted shipments hoping to contact the New Republic. When his employer found out, Argen took his family and ran.

“Do we really have to move _again_?” Jeron asks.

“It’s not safe to stay here.”

“Will you take us somewhere that is?”

Din returns his attention to the darkening line of row houses. “That’s not my job.”

“Your job was to get my dad, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t do that, so…”

“So?”

“So you’re going to help us.”

“You sound sure about that.”

“Course I am. You’re a dad. It’s what dads do.”

Din’s hand closes around the window frame. Wood cracks beneath his fingers.

“Jeron,” calls Argen’s harried voice, “get your brother from the crib.”

Din turns from the window to see Argen walking into the room, one of his boys in his arms, three bags slung around his neck. “You’re ready?”

Argen nods. “Just about. Jeron, get your brother.”

Jeron groans as he marches over to the crib. “But he always pees on me when I hold him.”

“ _Jeron_ -“

“Fine, I will…”

Din watches the boy pick up the squirming baby.

His arm physically aches to hold a tiny warm bundle close to his chest. He has to force himself not to offer to help with that as well.

The family gather in the bedroom, their bags in hands or slung over their shoulders.

“I’ll need a few minutes to find a transport,” Din tells them. “Wait here until I get back.”

“We need to stay together,” Jeron says, following Din to the top of the stairs, the baby squirming in his arms. “Isn’t that right, dad?”

Argen follows Jeron and puts his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “He knows what he’s doing, Jeron,” he says.

Din hesitates at the top of the stairs, surprised by the man’s assurance. “You trust me.”

“You’re good with them,” Argen says, and nods down at the boys. “They trust you. So I do too.”

It takes Din a moment to focus. He nods and starts down the stairs.

He’s just at the front door when it explodes inward, throwing him back to the steps, splinters raining down as screams echo from up above.

As the smoke clears, two Gammorean thugs march in, no knives or ceremonial gear, just blasters drawn and aimed at him.

“Get upstairs!” Din shouts, and pulls his blaster, firing at both of them as they rush his position, grunting as their blaster fire ricochets off his chest plate. He hits the first in the chest, then when the other launches himself at him, pulls his knife and stabs deep into vital organs.

As he pushes the dead Gammorean to the side, Din takes two blaster shots to the helmet, and two more to the chest in quick succession. A half dozen thugs are charging the door from a box transport on the street, all of them wearing the Ithi-Corp security logo on their uniforms. 

“Kriffing corporate jobs,” Din growls, and triggers his jetpack, flying headfirst into the closest attackers, pushing the fight back onto the street. 

When they land in a tangle of limbs, Din is first on his feet, turning in place with arm extended to spray fire into their faces, blaster out and firing in the other direction, taking out anyone who gets too close.

A man grabs him from behind- Another shoves his arm with the flamethrower up- Still another grabs for his blaster. Din drops his weight to pull them closer, kicking through a knee, throwing his head to the side to crush a nose, then yanking his blaster arm loose and jetting up into the air to land on the transport.

Three left on the street- He shoots them in quick succession- But then he sees two more men, both of them enormous, charging through the front door and up the stairs.

Din looks from the front door to the upstairs window and triggers his jetpack full throttle, soaring toward the house and crashing through the window. He careens over the stairwell and lands hard on the upstairs landing, skidding across the floor and knocking down both thugs.

He’s faster but they’re bigger, and when both of them rush him and grab hold, he can’t hold them back. He triggers his jetpack, trying to shove them back from the family in the bedroom, but the bigger man gets the idea of slamming Din’s engines with his blaster. When it goes out, the remaining one propels them sideways, down the stairs.

When they tumble to the landing Din winds up first on the floor, the massive thug dropping unconscious atop him, his partner cushioned by them both. He’s on his feet, Din trapped beneath the massive weight, an easy target-

Beneath his hand Din feels his shape of the Darksaber. He closes his fingers around it, tries to remember which way it’s pointing, and ignites it.

It’s a gruesome business, slicing his way free of the man’s now dead weight. It has his partner staring in horror, a fatal mistake. Din swings the Darksaber in a wide arc, then stands, panting, as the thug’s body falls in two different directions.

At the top of the stairs, the floorboards creak. 

Din spins around, blade moving through the air.

There’s a loud clatter, and when Din looks over, he sees an enormous wooden chest fall to the ground into two pieces. 

He looks at the glowing black blade, and then carefully shuts down the saber.

Argen and the boys are all staring at him down the stairs. 

“I’ve got us a transport,” Din tells them. “We need to get moving. Just…“ He glances down, then out the front doors, at the bodies that litter the street. “Don’t look down. If you can help it.”

In the commandeered corporate transport, it’s easy for Din to transport Argen’s family to his ship. They board without incident and take off from Ithi-Corp City with only one stop to make before they head off planet.

Under Argen’s direction, Din flies the Morning Sun to a government complex on the other side of the planet where a hundred warehouses are interrupted by landing fields. They hold archival documents and computer equipment, except for one where Din and Argen now stand.

“I wish I could have done more,” Argen says.

Din looks up from the open crate of brand new Imperial repeater rifles. There are fifty more just like it. “This could have supplied ten platoons. Enough to take over a city.”

“Five times this much went to the Imperials before I found the courage to stop it.”

“What you’ve done will save many lives.”

“At a cost,” Argen says, looking over at where the boys are playing by the Morning Sun’s gangplank. 

“There’s always a cost,” Din says, and seals up the crate. 

Din leaves Noro'ath without the full bounty, but with five passengers in tow and fifty crates of Imperial munitions secured along the walls of his ship’s hold. The ship is cramped enough that he gets frequent visitors to his cockpit as they travel through hyperspace.

Jeron is the most often in the navigator’s spot, just behind Din and to the right. He’s restless already, swiveling in his seat back and forth, the chair squeaking on every rotation. 

It’s grating on Din’s nerves. “Stop that,” he snaps over his shoulder, the act so familiar that he winces when he sees Jeron staring back at him instead of two large round eyes.

“Are you going to get in trouble?” Jeron asks, unbothered. 

“For which thing?” Din grumbles, because once again he’s got a list of problems. Once again he’s bending the Guild rules and going rogue, just to do what he thinks is right. 

He should just be doing the job. Why can he never just do the kriffing job? He’s even running a taxi service free of charge. How does he keep ending up in these situations?

“I meant in trouble for helping us instead of capturing us.”

“Probably.”

“You’re not scared?”

This boy is _exhausting_. “No.”

“Not even of bounty hunters?”

“ _I’m_ a bounty hunter.”

“Yeah, but I mean real ones.”

Din turns his chair around and glares at the boy.

“I mean the, you know, shoot first and not ask questions bounty hunters,” Jeron says quickly. “Not the good bounty hunters, like you.”

Din’s not sure how to take that, so he ignores it. “The men who issued your bounty weren’t Guild,” he explains. “Once this is all reported, they’ll be the ones in trouble.”

“Are you going to report them?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” Argen says, stepping into the cockpit and soothing Jeron’s hair back from his face.

Din turns back to the stars. “The Guild doesn’t tolerate imposters. They’ll handle it.”

“Dad? Does that mean we can go back home?”

“No, Jeron. I think a fresh start is better. Leave all the bad memories behind.”

Back in the ship’s hold, a baby laughs. 

Din closes his eyes. Struggles to keep the grief from clawing its way out. “You can’t,” he says, voice rough.

“What’s that?” Argen asks.

“You can’t leave the memories behind. They follow you wherever you go.”

Argen doesn’t answer for a while. When he speaks again, his voice is unsteady. “It’s time to eat now, Jeron.”

“Be there in a minute.”

“Jeron-“

“It’s all right,” Din says, surprising himself.

“Just a few minutes,” Argen says, and heads back into the hold.

“Hey so what’s your name anyway?” Jeron asks.

Din ducks his head and smiles. This child is _relentless_. “You would make a good Mandalorian.”

“I would?”

“You’re stubborn, curious, brave, and protective of your clan.”

“Huh,” Jeron says.

For a while Din has blissful silence.

“So where is he?” Jeron asks.

Din sighs. “Where’s _who_?”

“Your little boy.”

Din nearly knocks the ship from its hyperspace trajectory. He loosens his hands on the controls. Lowers his hands to his legs. “He’s not here.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s with others of his kind.”

“What, like, his family?”

Din is starting to regret letting the kid stay. “Yes. He’s with his family.”

“I thought _you_ were his family.”

Din twists in his chair, irritated and ready to tell the kid to leave… But Jeron’s eyes are just curious, and the urge fades as quickly as it appears. 

Being with Grogu has changed him in this way too, it seems.

“He was a foundling,” Din says. “He was placed in my care for a time. I was tasked with taking him back to those of his own kind to care for him. I completed my task, and now he is with them.” Din draws in a breath. Sighs out the ritual words. “This is the Way.”

Jeron crosses his thin arms. “No, it’s not.”

Din opens his mouth. Closes it again.

“You don’t leave your family,” Jeron insists. “You stick together, no matter what.”

“It’s… not that simple.”

“Sure it is. That’s what family does. They stay with you. Just like my family. My baby brother pees on me all the time but I still love him. Because he’s my brother. Don’t Mandalorians love their kids?”

“Of course,” Din snaps. “Our children are the most important things in the world. The foundlings are our future.”

“Well then what you said _can’t_ be the way, can it.”

“I… It’s…” Din trails off, arguments tumbling one after the other in his head.

“If you ask me,” the boy begins.

“Jeron!” Argen calls from the ship.

The boy hops off the navigator chair. “Gotta go.”

Din stares after him a long while, listening to the happy voices of the family ringing through his ship, wondering what in the kriffing hell just happened.

Din takes the family to Borovh, an out of the way planet with no rare commodities to offer, barely a blip on the radar of either New Republic or Empire. Once he lands them at the modest starport, they gather in the ship’s hold by the open landing ramp.

Argen has the larger bags over his shoulders, with the baby tucked into his arms. The other three boys all have their small sachels with them, and stand together looking up at Din, surprisingly solemn.

“It’s best if I don’t leave the ship,” Din tells them. “We’ll part ways here.”

“You’re not coming with us?” Jeron asks.

“I'll draw too much attention. You and your family need to blend in.” Din pulls the pouch of credits from his pocket. Hands it to Argen. “Here. This should help.”

Argen peers inside, then looks up at Din, shocked. “I can’t-“

“It’s the bounty for finding you. You'll need it to stay off the grid. As soon as I leave, head to a different city. Blend in with the locals."

“You think they’ll come after us?”

“Not once the Guild and the New Rebblic clean up Ithi-Corp City. Until then... I'll lay some false trails. Keep them coming after me instead of you."

Argen tucks away the pouch and shifts the bags on his shoulders, the baby patting Argen's chest as he's shifted. "Thank you so much for helping us," the man says. "And also for getting the weapons to the New Republic. I can't tell you how much I-"

"You're welcome," Din says.

Argen nods at him, then guides his younger sons down the stairs.

Jeron lingers behind, his sad expression belonging to someone far older than his ten years. "How do Mandalorians say goodbye?”

Din lowers himself to a knee, eye to eye with the boy. "We say ‘ _ret'urcye mhi’_. It means 'maybe we’ll meet again'.”

"That sounds like I won’t see you again.”

 _You probably won’t_ , Din thinks. “All right. What about… Until our paths cross. It's something I say to my friends.”

Jeron holds out his hand. “Until our paths cross, Mister Mandalorian.”

Din clasps the boy’s strong little fingers. “Until our paths cross, Jeron.”

“Jeron!” calls the boy’s father.

“You better go,” Din says.

Jeron nods, then heads down the ramp and onto the field without looking back.

Din climbs to his feet and triggers the ramp to close. Just before it seals, he hears a baby’s laugh, high and delighted.

Out of reflex, Din looks down by his feet. 

But there’s no large eyes looking up at him. No smile of joy or mischief.

Behind him the ramp locks itself closed. 

He’s on his own again.


	4. The Hero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter contains references to violence against bloodthirsty murderous star wars animals. (don't think dogs when you read 'hounds', think [these scary things instead](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Anooba), eesh... )

After only a half day's journey he reaches Dharo, the sector’s trade hub and the galaxy’s source of Baronite. It’s a likely destination for any bounty hunter chasing Argen’s family. The cities are affluent and densely populated; the Baronite mountains scramble offworld electronics. It’ll be easy to lay a false trail just by showing himself in public.

Dharon Planetary Control Droid assigns his ship to an urban starport for commuter vessels, luxury craft and leisure transports, just like on the last two planets. When he sets down, a Field Tech wanders over without looking up from her data pad, the violet skin of her arm a sharp contrast with her white hair and uniform.

“Incom Private Cruiser you’re clear to disembark,” she sighs through his ship’s comms, sounding bored. “Travel information is at hangar reception. City tours are on the hour. Urondan City Starport welcomes you and wishes you a nice day.” 

Din thinks of the hold full of imperial weapons and leans forward to trigger his comms. “Thank you. You too.”

She’s already wandered off to deal with the next tourist.

“Huh,” he says. “Not bad.”

Before he leaves the ship to contact the Guild, he takes an inventory of his supply situation. 

He’s missing critical weapons, low on backup batteries, out of whistling birds for his arm launcher, and most of his food is gone. Jeron and his little brothers must have been scavenging. More than once he’d spotted them digging into his cabinets, just like the kid had done.

Grogu had always been into his supplies, even when he wasn’t looking for food. The kid just enjoyed emptying boxes and climbing inside. The kid would have loved helping Argen’s little womp rats with their exploring. He would have been right there with them, giving that toothy mischievous smile, his ears perked up and happy, his eyes bright and round, his laughter mixing with the other children as he-

Din catches himself. Slams the cabinet closed.

He needs work. Hard, brutal, work. Something to get him back on track after that unintentional detour with Argen’s family.

Something to get him back to who he’s supposed to be.

The Dharon Guild is disturbingly legitimate. When Din makes contact, the Guild Rep invites him to lunch not at a bar, but at a rooftop garden café atop the government building where she has her office.

No one stops him when he strides into the building’s glass lobby, his weapons and armor a stark contrast to the stylish business clothes on the violet-skinned Dharons. No one asks for his chaincode when he gets into the elevator alongside curious but unafraid office workers. And when he reaches the pompous rooftop café with its formally dressed musicians and potted plants, he hears only amused murmurs from the customers, all of whom watch him as if he’s some addle-brained bantha who wandered in from the field.

In the rooftop's corner, overlooking an over-manicured city park, sits his Guild Rep. She’s a well-dressed older woman, no sign of obvious weapons, the breeze moving her long white hair over her deeply violet skin. “Well,” she tells him, “you certainly made good time.”

“Your security is terrible,” he tells her. “I wasn’t stopped once.”

“There was no need. I checked your Guild background when you made contact and have been tracking your movements ever since. When you entered the building, your weapons were inventoried and sent to me as well.” She holds up a Dharon device, tapping its screen. “ _Two_ flamethrowers? Really? Seems excessive, don’t you think?”

Din readjusts his assessment of the planet’s surveillance systems. He should have known such affluence would breed paranoia.

“Join me for lunch,” she tells him. “You can try the Moonflower tea. It’s quite delicious.”

“You said you have a job.”

She sighs and places a bounty puck and a Dharon comm unit on the table. “A dozen mining towns near the Baronite foothills are being terrorized by raiders holing up in the foothills. It’s disrupting the Baronite supply.”

“Sounds like work for your military.”

“We don’t have military on Dharo. We have Security Forces, and they are not trained to deal with the savage brutality of these vicious guerilla tactics. The raiders have loosed packs of _Anooba_ _bloodhounds_ on the civilian population, for the love of lord and lady. It’s despicable.” She leans back in her chair, studying him. “A Mandalorian should be quite capable of handling such people, so I’ve been told, at least.”

“What’s the bounty?” Din asks, ignoring the insult. He wants to get away from this pretentious place and these condescending people. Two of the waitstaff are taking his holo as if he’s some street performer, for kriff’s sake. 

“My client is offering two thousand credits for each raider eliminated, and a thousand for each beast.”

“How many are there?”

“Two dozen raiders and a dozen Anooba.” 

“Sixty thousand credits. It’s a deal.” 

“Oh, you’re going to get all of them, are you?” she laughs, as Din picks up the puck and the comm unit.

“Yes.” He hesitates before stepping away. “Your client can cover it?”

A flash of irritation now. “Of course they can. I’d only _meant_ -“

“Then we have a deal,” he says and ignites his jetpack, deeply satisfied at the shouts and breaking dishes that echo behind him as he jets away.

For two grueling weeks, Din fights and hikes his way through the rocky, shrub-covered Baronite Mountain foothills. Hours of silent tracking are interspersed with brutal skirmishes, Din hiking on foot from camp to camp. The raiders are so well trained they read like ex-military or mercenaries, more than one of them from a race that’s common in the Guild. They fight brutally, wordlessly, like men and women on a crusade. None of them surrender, so Din finishes them with blaster or knife or spear. The Anoobas they keep chained are no better, bred to be mindless vicious attackers, a crime itself against these massive warrior beasts.

It’s not until Din reaches the final raider camp that the reason for everything becomes clear. When he finds the camp empty, he follows the trail to a nearby clearing and discovers a TIE fighter. Its pilot stands nearby, surrounded by five raiders and two beasts on metal chains. 

_Kriffing Imps_ , Din thinks, and crawls on aching knees into the underbrush, his armor and clothing so caked with blood and grime and mud that grit falls away when he sits down in the brush, painfully jarring a healing knife wound in his side.

He could call his Guild Rep, but she’d just send in a squad of local security buffoons. The Imp and his ship would get away, and he’d never figure out what was going on here. No, he’s going to have to deal with this himself, even though his weapons batteries are low, his jet pack is on its last bit of juice, and his flamethrowers are long since used up. 

His only choice is the explosive he’s been saving, and the Darksaber on his belt. To use either of them, he’s going to have to get closer.

He makes it halfway around the clearing before the hounds pick up on his scent, which is further than he’d expected considering how long it’s been since he’s been able to properly wash any aspect of himself. When the beasts snarl and raise up on their massive haunches, pulling at their chains in his direction, the raiders and the pilot turns, hands moving too fast to their blasters.

Din ignites his jetpack and soars over the group, firing his blaster and taking out the pilot and two more before landing behind the TIE fighter. He slaps his explosive to the metal skin then jets off toward the trees, but his engines cut out halfway to safety, dropping him to the rocky ground.

The beasts are on him before he gets to his feet, Din lifting his blaster arm to shove his vambrace into the jaw snarling for his throat, kicking backward on the ground and kicking at the other beast as he grabs for his darksaber. He ignites it and slices it through the closest beast just as sharp teeth tear viciously into his calf- it’s an agony as if his leg is being torn off- and he drags the darksaber through the dead animal on his chest then swings it wildly downward-

All sound is drowned by the explosion, the concussive blast knocking his head back to the rocky ground, flame and heat rolling over him, everything fire and smoke, as his ears ring and his vision darkens to the smell of burning fur.

When Din comes to, he wishes he didn’t. 

Everything hurts; his pounding head from the blast and his aching back from being bent backwards over his jetpack and even his chest- or no- that’s the dead beast- he’s still laying beneath their bodies- kriffing hells they stink, all singed fur and gore and- Well, at least they protected him from the flames, so that’s something, right? Like laying beneath a fireproof fur carpet.

 _Shock_ , Din realizes, at the strange path his thoughts are taking. _I’m in shock._ _All right. You know what to do. First, take inventory. How bad is the damage?_

He lifts his throbbing head, but he can’t see his body past the beast. No problem with his left arm, and once he pushes the animal’s torso free he can use his right arm to pick up the Darksaber where it lies on the ground. His left leg bends and lets him kick away the other Anooba. His right leg-

Din cries out, his shout echoing in his helmet, pain spearing up his calf from where he was bitten. His right leg is a problem. He needs to be careful with that. Very, very careful.

Slowly he sits up, to find that his leg is in one piece- he can even move his toes in his boot- it’s just a vicious bite, deep and probably already getting infected.

In the clearing, metal squeaks as a part of the smouldering TIE’s wing falls onto a charred body. 

“Comms,” he says. “Where is…” He grabs blindly for the unit at his belt. Triggers it with a shaking hand. 

“Yes?” asks the Guild Rep, her voice accompanied by soft music of the café.

“They weren’t raiders,” Din says.

“What’s that?”

“They were Imperial mercenaries.”

There’s a pause. “You’re sure?”

“Get a fix…” Din catches himself on the ground because nearly fallen over. “Fix… your surveillance. On my location.”

Another pause that goes on for so long that Din can’t help it, he has to lie down. 

The treetops are hazy above him, his vision doubled in a way that makes everything soft. If he ignores everything around him, it’s strangely peaceful laying here on this mountain, the trees swaying above him, the white clouds moving in the breeze that chills his skin beneath his blood soaked clothing. 

He feels strangely peaceful, just like he had in that cantina on Nevarro. Facing a death he’d always known was coming. IG-9 had saved him then, but there’s no droid to save him now. He might actually die here. Alone. On this mountain.

 _But if I die, I won’t see the kid again_. 

_I’ll break my promise._

With a groan, he shoves himself to an elbow. Agony stabbing at his leg, he forces himself to sit up. He paws at his cape and rips off a long section of tattered clothing, bites down on the cowl of his flight suit, and wraps the cloth tight around his wound, binding it tight. 

When he catches his breath, he struggles to his feet, stumbles, but doesn’t fall.

“Mandalorian Guildsman,” says the Guild Rep’s voice. 

Din grabs the comms. “Still here.”

“Hold your location. Help is on its way.”

Four Dharon transports now sit in the clearing by the remnants of the TIE fighter, Dharon Security forces fanning out everywhere in their white uniforms, counting bodies and checking chaincodes and calling excitedly to each other.

Din waits for the Guild Rep to show, only barely still on his feet. His mouth is dry from dehydration, he’s shaking from exhaustion, his stomach is in knots from hunger, and he’s sweating either from his concussion or from the animal bites. He wants to leave, but his legs won’t get him far and his jetpack is empty. So he just stands in the clearing, answering the same questions over and over.

“-is that correct?” the Dharon officer asks.

Din doesn’t remember the question. “What… did you…?”

“He’s done here,” says a woman’s sharp voice, and Din realizes it’s the Guild Rep. She’s climbing out of an expensive 4-seat transport that’s parked not too far away, her dress flowing behind her as she approaches. 

He didn’t notice the ship land, but he notices the sudden movement in the brush nearby. “Get down!” he shouts, stumbling forward and pushing the Guild Rep aside, Darksaber in hand and swinging through the air as the Anooba launches itself at the three of them.

The beast knocks him down as it falls to either side of him, and he’s barely able to sit himself up before he sees the next one charging from the brush.

Blaster fire from beside him stops it dead; more takes out the animal charging from behind it. 

Din looks over at the Guild Rep, who is still glaring dangerously at the trees, a long elegant blaster in her hand. “They travel in packs of three. That should be all of them.”

“Good to know.” She tucks her blaster away in a hidden pocket in her dress, then looks over at the darksaber in his hand. “We didn’t pick _that_ up on our scans.”

“Figures,” Din mutters, and closes it down.

“Help me get this man to his feet,” she tells the startled Dharon security officer, who hurries to comply. “He’s a member of the Guild,” she tells him, once Din is unsteadily standing again. “Any further questions come through me.”

“But-“

“Go away now,” she growls at him.

Din can’t help but be impressed by how quickly the officer scurries. No one else looks ready to protest. “They’re government officers.”

“And we’re the _Guild_. Are you able to walk to my ship?”

His knee buckles when he takes a step, and she grabs his arm, unconcerned about the blood and dirt smearing onto her clothes. “You are _insane_ , do you know that?”

“Probably,” Din says through his teeth, trying not to be sick from the pain shooting up his leg as he walks.

“The Dharon President is going to want to give you a medal for this, you know.”

“Medal?”

“My arrival was delayed because I was on the comms with the head of the Dharon Security. They just found a dozen rhydonium bombs in the cave near that last camp. These raids were just a distraction, to pull attention way from their efforts to plant bombs in the central mine shaft. The imperial remnants intended to cut off Baronite supply to the New Republic shipyards. If you hadn’t taken stopped them, it would have halted ship production for months.”

“I was just doing the job.”

“You were just-? Is that all you have to-? Watch your feet here.”

Din frowns at the three steps leading up to the ship. He clenches his teeth and lifts his foot onto the first one, then has to pant through the pain and grabs hard onto the ship’s doorway.

She wraps her arm around his back and hauls him up alongside her. “How long did you know they were paid mercs?”

Din climbs another step. Swallows down bile. “Third day in.”

“ _Why_ in the Twelve Dharon Hells didn’t you contact me?”

One more step to the hold. He squeezes his eyes closed and makes it, though his head is throbbing, and he doesn’t entirely remember her walking him to the passenger’s seat to sit him down. 

“You should have called for help,” she tells him sharply.

“This is the Way,” he says out of reflex, then sighs and sags back against the seat.

“Don’t die on me.” She pulls out a med kit from beneath her seat. “You’re too valuable to the Guild.”

“Huh. Thanks.”

“Here, I’m sure you need this for something under all that beskar and blood.”

Din takes the bacta spray. Groans as he bends forward to pull his pant leg from his mud-crusted boot and expose the red and- yes, getting infected- bite marks. “Eighty-five thousand credits,” he says, then sighs as the cool bacta foams and coats the wound. 

“What’s that?”

“Two thousand for each raider. A thousand for each Anooba. Thirty-five raiders plus fifteen Anooba. Eighty-five thousand credits. Your client can cover it, you said?”

“That’s what you’re thinking about? The bounty?”

“Need to upgrade my ship,” he says, and pulls at his flight tunic to expose the knife wound sliced along his ribs.

She shakes her head and climbs into the pilot’s chair. “Mandalorians,” she murmurs. But this time there’s no mockery. No condescension.

Just open admiration instead.

He doesn’t remember the flight to his ship. They must stop somewhere on the way, which is alarming, because when he wakes up and climbs from the passenger’s seat- his leg thankfully more stable now- there are new crates in the back of her transport.

“Your bounty,” she tells him, when he climbs out of the ship and down the starport’s hangar. She’s already beckoning service droids over to unload the crates and carry them to the Morning Sun. 

“Eighty-five thousand credits take up three crates?”

“Food supplies, nutrient drinks, and medical packs are in the first three crates. Your bounty is in the fourth, along with a token of the Guild’s appreciation. She smiles as if she has a secret and holds out her hand, still covered in the blood and dirt from his body. “Come back anytime. You’re always welcome on Dharo, Mandalorian.”

He clasps her hand. Nods.

Once the droids load the crates into his ship, Din kicks them out and seals up the hold so he can pull his helmet off for the first time in two weeks. He tears open the crates with the food rations before checking for his bounty, so dizzy with hunger that he’s on his knees, yanking off his gloves to tear open the first food packet and eat with his fingers. He accidentally crushes the first nutrient drink in his hurry, liquid spilling down his bloody chest plate, but manages to open the next, downing the drink in several enormous gulps.

After a while he forces himself to slow down so he doesn’t get sick, turning his attention to the box of medical supplies, and then to the crate with his bounty.

Din laughs when he opens it, because below the pouch of credits is everything he needs to resupply his armaments. There’s blaster battery packs, fuel for his flame throwers, tanks for jetpack, and even- Din lifts out a tiny, finely crafted missile, impressed- more than enough whistling birds for his arm launcher.

 _Kriffing hell_ Dharon surveillance is unnerving. But in this case, he can’t complain.

He reaches for another drink pack, because the sweet taste is deliciously addictive, fruity with a pleasant aftertaste that is settling his stomach. As he tears it open, he pauses to read the label. 

"Moonflower tea," he mutters, smiling, and drinks it down.

He spends a few days recovering on his ship. It lets him reorganize his storage for his new weapons and sleep through the worst of his recovery. Once he’s able to move without pain, he plots a course off Dharo. 

The moment he flies beyond the Baronite mountains interference, his comms chime with a holo message. Din triggers it, and Greef Karga shimmers into view.

“ _Hello_ , old friend. I'm glad you finally made contact, even if it is with news of corruption. I’m happy to report that the Guild on Noro'ath has now been fully restored. Also, the New Republic has arrested twenty-five members of Ithi-Corp for illegal weapons sales. A few corporate officers got away, but the Guild has placed generous bounties on their heads. We’ll take care of the New Republic’s mess, _as_ _usual_.”

“Should go after them myself,” Din mutters, and throttles up his engines, boosting the ship into space.

“My next order of business is to deliver this ridiculously cryptic message from Marshall Dune. Are you ready for this one? Here goes. Apparently, _she_ says that our friend the ghost has asked for your help, and needs some of your _crafting supplies_.” Karga crosses his arms and huffs. “Apparently you know what the hell _that_ means. If you ask me, she’s sending you on a wild garbon chase. Come back to Nevarro, old friend. I owe you a drink, after recent events.”

Din frowns at the stars beyond his cockpit. 

No question that Cara is talking about Mayfeld. He’s the only not-dead legally dead man they know. And the crafting supplies have to mean the imperial munitions he’s still carrying. But why would Cara want to give Mayfeld weapons? What trouble had the man gotten himself into on Morak?

“Only one way to find out,” Din says. “Looks like we’re going to Morak, kid.”

Din ducks his head, hand closing into a fist that hovers over the controls before dropping weakly to the instruments.

“Morak,” he tells himself, and plots in a course.

Alarms go off all over the Razor Crest's cockpit. The kid is at the switches again, and this time the ship veers dangerously out of its hyperspace trajectory.

“Stop that!” Din shouts, and pulls the kid from the control panel, dropping him to his seat. “Dank ferrik kid, you’re going to get us both killed!” 

He quickly resets their course, barely avoiding a supernova and certain death. Once they’re safe, Din turns angrily in his seat, only to find the child gone.

“Kid!” Panic has him rushing from the cockpit and sliding down the ladder, opening cabinets and moving crates until he finally discovers the child huddled in a corner. “There you are,” Din sighs out, heart beating hard against his ribs as he drops to a knee. “You scared me. I didn’t know where you were.”

When Din reaches for him, the child ducks his head into his robes, ears flattening.

Din leans back, shocked. “Are you… scared of me?”

A pathetic whimper, like a knife through his gut.

“Hey, no- that’s…“ Din moves away a supply box, but the kid backs away. “No, please… Don’t be afraid. I shouldn’t have yelled. You just scared me and…“ He frowns at himself. “It was wrong. What I did was wrong. I’m sorry. I really am, buddy.”

Grogu’s ears perk up, chin lifting. “Eh?”

“Yes, I mean it. Here. Look at me.” Din grabs his helmet near his chin and pulls it off, the easiest thing in the world. “See? Look at my face. You can see I’m sorry, can’t you? Look at me, please...”

The child toddles closer, a cautious hand resting upon Din’s knee.

Din pulls off his gloves so he can soothe his fingertip along the child’s soft ears. Grogu cooes at him, his ears perking up, his tiny hand curling around Din’s finger. 

“You deserve better than me,” Din admits, meaning it right down to his bones. “You’re so special and I’m just… Well. Nothing much. But I’m trying to be better. I can learn. I swear I can. So what do you say? Can you forgive me?”

The child smiles up at him, arms raising to be held.

Din gathers him into his arms, ducking his head to brush his nose against the soft hairs atop the kid’s wrinkled head. When he sighs, a small hand brushes his cheek, warm and full of love like that day on the bridge-

The bridge with the Jedi-

The Jedi carrying the kid away-

The elevator doors slamming shut between them-

“No!”

Din jerks awake, straining against the pilot’s harness in the Morning Sun, hyperspace spinning through the narrow slit of his helmet. He’s breathing so hard that his visor is fogging up. He’s panting himself unconscious. 

He reaches up and pulls the helmet off, cool air moving over his cheeks as he thumps his head back against the seat. 

Nothing makes any kriffing sense. That last job had been tougher than any he can remember in years. He'd worked himself past exhaustion- nearly worked himself to death- and _still_ nothing feels right. The child's absence hurts, an anguish that won't ease. If anything, his loss and loneliness has grown _stronger_ over time, not weaker.

“Why isn’t this working?” he asks the swirling stars. 

The empty ship feels like answer enough.


	5. The Ghost

Morak is covered with lush green continents and deep blue seas, an oasis of life amid the desolation of empty space. It would be a welcome sight to any weary traveler. When Din sees it, he feels only dread. 

This is the place he broke his Creed. On Nevarro, with IG-9, he had faltered. But on Morak, he had truly fallen.

His scans locate Mayfeld’s beacon near a town of a few thousand, not too far from the Rhydonium refinery the pair of them had infiltrated. When last they'd been here, the complex was merely damaged. Now it’s destroyed, even its dam demolished with its river flowing along natural contours. 

The Imps are building a new refinery, though, suicidally close to the actual Rhydonium mine. Imp comm frequencies are full of intel about it, so Din lingers in orbit, intercepting and decoding their transmissions, courtesy of stolen codes from Gideon's ship. 

He wishes he could take any pleasure from the small victory. But it had cost him too much. Far too much.

Din lands the Morning Sun in a jungle clearing, far enough from town that he'll have time to prepare for whoever comes looking. He sets a campfire by the closed up ship as a lure, then hides himself away in a dark hollow.

Sunlight fades slow as a dewback, darkness growing by degrees as the sun dips behind mountains and trees. Night breezes rustle the palm fronds, so Din notches up his parabolic mic, trying to pick up any trace of a visitor.

Any noise could signal he has company. The crack of a branch. The rustle of leaves. The-

“Well, just look at that little old lady ship!”

Din sighs and holsters his blaster as Mayfeld stomps into the clearing, shining his flashlight all over Din’s ship, grinning his fool bald head off at his own antics, his pale face a stark contrast to his dark green clothing. 

“Now where did this private cruiser come from?” Mayfeld calls out, singsong. “I sure hope some old granny didn’t lose her way!”

“Mayfeld,” Din says, and steps out of the shadows. 

Mayfeld slaps a palm to his chest. “Why Mando! What a surprise!”

“I heard you needed help.”

“What, no ‘how are you’? No offer to tour your little old lady ship?”

Din steps by the campfire. “It was a little old man.”

“What’s that?”

“I bought the ship from a little old man. Not a little old lady.”

Mayfeld squints at him. "Was that a joke? Seriously, I can’t tell. Maybe if you laugh?”

It doesn't deserve a reply. So he doesn't give one.

“What, not even a chuckle?”

“Say something funny for once and I might.”

He’d meant it as an insult, but Mayfeld barks out a delighted laugh. “Look at you, cracking jokes! Now that’s a change from last time I saw you.”

Memories shove their way into Din's mind: Of Valin Hess calling him ‘brown eyes’. Of sitting bare-faced among Imperial murderers. Of panicking for the first time in his adult life. The kid would have died if Mayfeld hadn't stepped in. He would have died-

“You awake in there?” Mayfeld asks.

The man is holding out a data pad. Din takes it with a hand only barely held steady. His heart is hammering. "What's this?”

“Let’s call them my crafting plans, while you and I are out here in the open."

The caution is warranted, because on the pad is a plan for upcoming raids on Rhydonium ore transports, arriving troop ships and supply freighters. "This is... ambitious."

“Ambitious good or ambitious bad?"

“Good. It should work. But you’ll need what I brought with me. And this should help as well."

"A present for me?" Mayfeld takes the data stick Din offers and uploads it to his data pad. As he reads through the decoded transmissions, his eyebrows raise, until he looks up, incredulous. "Where did...?"

“Is it useful?”

“Useful? Karabast, this is is perfect! I’ve been going crazy trying to figure out-” He glances around, catching himself. “I’ll tell you later. Come on. We’re heading into town. This calls for a celebration.”

“Don’t you want to check over the…” Din sighs, loudly. He hates not just saying what he wants to say. "Crafting supplies?”

“When we get back. I need to borrow a skiff from someone in town first, anyway.” 

“Fine.”

“All right then. Go get the little green kid and we'll head out."

Din's pained inhale rattles through his modulator, grief slicing through his gut.

“No,” Mayfeld breathes, looking gutted. “That’s... No. You got the kid back. I know you did. You’re you. Of course you did. Right?“

“I… Yes.”

“Then where is he?”

“With his people.”

“What, and that’s not you?”

“No.”

Mayfeld wants to press, Din knows he does. The man can’t leave any subject alone. But for whatever reason, he only nods. “First drink’s on me.”

The town is larger than it appeared from space, its dirt roads hidden beneath the protective jungle canopy. A thousand people from a dozen alien races are here, many of them out tonight in the evening air, walking down softly lit streets, visiting the shops and the restaurants. Mayfeld is well known here, apparently, vendors and locals often calling out greetings. A few children greet him as they pass, stealing glances at Din before scampering away.

“I do odd jobs around town,” Mayfeld explains. “Fix stuff, mostly. Especially at the inn where I live, right there, across from where we're eating."

Din was expecting a cantina, but this is a restaurant, its front windows open to the fresh air, music and laughter spilling out from a dozen tables filled by locals and families. 

When Din walks through the door, all conversation and music stops.

Mayfeld pauses in the middle of place, arms lifting out to his sides as if trying to greet everyone at once. "Nothing to worry about, folks! My friend isn't here on business. He’s just visiting. Isn't that right, Mando?”

“Yes,” Din says. “I’m… visiting.”

A few people shift nervously. Over at the bar, someone coughs. 

Mayfeld marches over to him, irritated. “Could that have _sounded_ any more threatening?”

“Yes."

Mayfeld rolls his eyes and heads back into the place, pausing at every table they pass, charming old ladies at one, tousling the hair of children at another, promising repairs and visits, wielding his wit and his charm like weapons, restoring the hum of conversation and music to what it was.

When they finally reach the empty back table, Din yanks his beskar spear from beside his jetpack and sits down so hard that the chair creaks beneath his weight. “I’ve been hit in the _helmet_ too many times?”

Mayfeld sits beside him, reclining in his seat. “Well, haven’t you? Nice stick, by the way. What’s it for, picking your teeth? And hey, there's my girl!"

A matronly old woman approaches the table, grey-haired and round-faced and smiling, her cloth dress covered with flour and bits of vegetables from the kitchen. "Stop your sweet talking and give me your order, Migs," she says, and swats him with her data pad.

He rubs his arm, giving her a wounded look. “Box up something for my pal here to eat later. For me, just the usual."

"Two mugs of Morakoan Summer Ale for starters?"

"Perfect. Oh, and bring a straw for him!"

Din waits until the woman is gone, then turns in his chair to glare at Mayfeld.

“What?” Mayfeld asks.

“I am _not_ drinking from a straw.”

“Why not? It would fit. Just tuck it up under that tin can of yours-”

“ _No_.”

“Well, at least some things haven’t changed," Mayfeld says through laughter. "You still have that stick firmly wedged up your butt. I never met anyone so easy to wind up.”

He really wants to punch this man in the face. Instead, he focuses on the restaurant patrons, searching for any hints of underworld. It’s mostly families, though, with quite a lot of children. There are five at the closest table, along with a father holding a baby in his arms. The infant squirms as Din watches; its tiny hand reaching for its father's face.

Din looks away. "When will our contact arrive?”

“Contact?”

“The reason we’re here. Our contact for local intel.”

Mayfeld looks at him as if he’s lost his mind. “We’re not meeting a contact. We’re eating. Mandalorians do eat, don’t they?”

“Of course we do."

“Well, then?”

“That’s... the only reason? There’s nothing else?”

“A home cooked dinner isn't reason enough?"

There's more, Din's sure there is. "Mayfeld."

"All right, fine," he says, irritated. "I might have- very possibly- also wanted you to meet the people I’m trying to help. Maybe inspire you to leave more _crafting supplies_ than you would have. I mean, take a look around you. These are good people. Hard working, families, kids... Like the family who runs this place. They damn near adopted me when I got here. They don’t deserve the things the Imps would- Oh hey, Granny!"

“Your drink, Migsey,” the old woman says, and places a mug full of brown liquid before him. “And one for your Mandalorian friend. With a straw.”

Din watches her set a mug before him. In it is a children’s straw covered in colorful happy faces.

Mayfeld laughs so hard he nearly falls from his chair. 

Halfway through dinner, the father from the nearby table approaches Mayfeld about some odd jobs. He brings his children with him, all of them shifting restless around his legs.

A tug at Din's cape has him looking down into the face of a small toddler. His small fingers are clutching the tattered fabric, his wobbly legs unsteady beneath him. When Din peers down at him, the child’s head tilts back, sending him entireliy off balance. Din catches him quickly, his gloved hands encircling the child's ribcage.

“Careful,” Din tells him, steadying him. "You all right there?"

The child tilts his head in an agonizingly familiar gesture, and Din feels it again, that carved-out hole in his chest, the empty place where something should be but isn't, the missing part of him that's been taken away.

“Hey, uh... Mando?”

Din opens eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed. Blinks up at the child’s father and at Mayfeld. “He was… going to fall," he says, and lets the child go.

The father scoops him up and steps away, as terrified as Argen had been that night on Noro'ath when Din had crashed through their bedroom window.

People nearby are staring, too. All of them expecting the worst. They likely know of the stories told about Mandalorians. Stories of war and of blood and of killing. None of the stories ever involved caring for any children. 

None of the stories, he realizes, except for his.

Before they head back to the Morning Sun, they borrow a hoverskiff from one of Mayfeld's contacts. It’s faster travelling by skiff through the dark jungle, but not fast enough for Din’s liking. The entire ride, Mayfeld won't stop _singing._

“Those aren’t the right words,” Din growls, when the man starts in on a vulgar rendition of ‘ _Little Fuzzy Bantha’._

“Oh yeah? And how would you know?”

“Everyone knows that song,” Din lies. He hadn’t known it until lately, when he’d been desperate to get the kid to sleep. He’d felt ridiculous singing, but the child had adored it, his eyes slowly sliding closed until he was asleep. He'd held the kid in his arms a long time that night. He’d known their time together was growing short.

“You sing it, then,” Mayfeld tells him.

“No.”

“Then how about a Mando song? A song about fighting, maybe? Or armor. I bet you people have plenty of songs about armor-“

“We’re here,” Din interrupts, indescribably grateful for the sight of his ship.

Even before the skiff comes to a stop Din jumps to the ground and opens the ramp to the Morning Sun. Mayfeld follows along, bringing his shoulder bag full of ale bottles and data pads and leftovers, Din closing the ramp to the ship as quickly as possible to block any listening ears. Finally, they can have an open conversation. “About the transport schedules-"

“Oh look at _these_ beauties," Mayfeld says, walking along the munitions crates lining the ship’s hold. “Man, when Cara told me she was going to give me weapons-“

“ _Loan_ you weapons.“

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Hey, this crate looks big enough to hold an e-web. Do you have an e-web in here? Or maybe it's long-distance repeater rifles. Could be those, at this size."

“How were you able to contact Cara Dune?”

“Friend of a friend of another friend. Hey, where’s your lounge? You have a granny ship and no lounge?”

“I had it removed."

“Then where do you sit?”

“In the cockpit.”

“Of course you do. Well in that case…” Before Din can protest, Mayfeld yanks the mattress from his bunk, tosses it onto the floor by the supply cabinets, and sits himself down upon it. “Look at that. I found the lounge!”

"That," Din says slowly, "was my bed."

“If you had a lounge, it would still be your bed. You know, I would have figured you for a sleeps-on-metal-slab kind of guy. But this thing is cushy. Like a little kid’s bed.”

Din yanks his spear from beside his jetpack and slams it to the metal floor, beskar ringing like a bell.

Mayfeld looks up, unimpressed. “You gonna sit down or what?”

“How has no one killed you yet?” Din growls.

“Bad aim, mostly. Now, where are those bottles of ale…” 

Din sighs at him, loudly, which has no effect at all, Mayfeld too preoccupied pulling out Din's dinner box, some leftover cake, and finally two bottles of ale and what looks like- "No," Din tells him.

"I didn't just bring straws for you, I brought one for me too. I think they’re adorable, personally. Look at these little happy faces.” He opens the bottles and drops a straw in each one. "Seriously, who doesn't like happy faces?"

“Mayfeld…”

“Just one drink," Mayfeld says. "Consider it a last request from a guy who's probably going to bite it on this backwater jungle in the next few weeks."

It's an exaggeration, but it is possible, so Din stores his jetpack and spear in his weapons locker, then sits down at the man's side to pick up a bottle of ale. "Fine. One drink."

"Deal." Mayfeld lifts his bottle. "Here's to Cara and her crafting supplies."

Din lifts his bottle in toast, then stares at it, trying to figure out how to drink it without making a total fool of himself.

"Seriously, man? I tell you..." He slaps his palm over his eyes. "That better?"

"Yes." Din tosses away the straw, tilts up the front of his helmet, gulps down his ale, then settles the beskar back in place. “Done.”

Mayfeld drops his hand and stares. “Hey, you didn't use your straw!”

“Never said I would."

“Seriously?"

"Now about the transport schedules," Din says.

"Big ball of fun _you_ are..."

The overall military strategy is sound, Din discovers. It’s a couple weeks of sabotage and harassment, followed by a couple more focused on disrupting Imp supply lines and troop reinforcements. By the end of the campaign, a direct assault on the refinery should be easy.

The real problem is the Rhydonium mine itself. As long as its mountain and tunnels are viable, the Imps will never leave Morak alone.

“I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” Mayfeld tells him, as they study the mine schematic, "but maybe we should let the New Republic handle it."

"Are you serious?"

“All we really need are two x-wings. A couple of strafing runs on the mountain should trigger a landslide to seal all the major tunnel entrances. Our friend Marshal Dune suggested the idea. She’s putting the request through channels.”

“Channels,” Din mutters. “Good luck.”

"You have a better idea?"

“Collapsing the entrances isn’t enough. We need to collapse the entire tunnel complex."

“If you're thinking of a bomb, then forget it. Any bomb would set off the Rhydonium. It would destroy the town and everyone in it."

“We could use seismic charges,” Din says. “Like the one Fett used against the TIEs. If we planet a small device in the lowest tunnel, the blast will only collapse the mountain and nothing else."

“Oh, is that all,” Mayfeld says, incredulous. “And how exactly do we get a bomb that far into an Imperial mine?”

“Hollow out a mining droid. The Imps on Dharo were going to do it to destroy the Baronite mines.“

"Huh. That actually could- Is that your _stomach?"_

"Ignore it," Din says, though he has to press his palm to his gut, his stomach is twisting so painfully.

“Just eat something," Mayfeld says, and shoves the box dinner toward him. “Listening to your stomach growl is making mine hurt. Actually, here..." He shifts in place until he's sitting with his back turned. “Better? Now come on. Eat. I won’t look until you give the all-clear.”

There’s no reason for Din to be irritated at the act of kindness, but that doesn't prevent the edge from creeping into his voice. “Why are you doing this?”

“You know how it is. A guy gets stranded on a planet, he needs something to pass the time. Might as well blow up a Rhydonium refinery.”

He hadn’t meant the campaign. He’d meant how Mayfeld is acting. But Mayfeld is lying, he can tell. “What's the real answer?”

“I just told you.”

Din sits in silence, waiting.

"You heard what Valin Hess said," Mayfeld says finally. "The empire don't care about the lives of these people. They'll kill every one of them the second they think they're in the way. The people of Morak don’t deserve what's coming. Someone's gotta stop it."

"And that someone is you?"

“Hell of a thing, isn't it?" Mayfeld asks, and gives a bitter laugh. "Who would have guessed? I mean, certainly not me, but... Honestly, Mando? More than anything? I'm just kriffing tired of _running_. Been doing it so long that I forgot what it’s like to stop. These people gave me that. Figure if I gotta stop running and make a stand somewhere... Might as well be Morak.”

 _Might as well be Morak_ , Din thinks. But not about Mayfeld. About himself.

This is where he broke from the Way of his tribe, even though Mayfeld is pretending he didn’t. But acting like nothing has changed is only a different kind of running. And he’s sick to death of lying to himself.

 _No more pretending,_ Din tells himself. _No more running_.

Slowly, Din pulls off one glove, and then another. His beskar helmet is cool beneath his palms, its comforting shape familiar as he lifts it up and off of his head. When he rests it upon his lap, he expects the panic to return. But instead, all he feels is the cool air of the ship upon his warm cheeks. He squints up at the ship's lights, brighter now without his visor, and inhales the delicious scent of roasted vegetables and spicy meat fills the air. 

"Mayfeld," Din says. "Turn around."

He doesn't get an answer immediately. "You sure?"

 _No,_ Din thinks. "Yes."

Mayfeld moves cautiously, as if expecting a trick, shifting at Din's side to press his back to the cabinets, shoulder to Din's shoulder, legs outstretched on the ship's durasteel floor. "Want another ale?"

"Yes." Din picks up the boxed dinner. Pulls it open with fingers that don't shake, though his heart is beating faster than it should. "What is this?"

"Looks like Granny's Jumjara Stew. That's her best meal. She must like you."

It's doubtful, but Din doesn't say so. He's too busy trying to chew his food with the extremely distracting sensation of someone else sitting right beside him. If he speaks he's afraid that he's going to choke on his mouthful of vegetables.

Mayfeld holds out a bottle of ale. 

Din takes it from him, and lifts it. "What this time?"

"To Granny's Jumjara Stew?"

For the third time in his adult life, Din turns his head to stare directly into the eyes of another human being without a visor shielding him. Mayfeld is looking at him, as he'd suspected, and it's reassuring that the man looks as unsettled as he does.

"To making a stand," Din says, rough.

Mayfeld nods. "To making a stand," he says, and clicks their bottles together.

They load up the skiff together, marching crates of weapons down the ramp of Din’s ship and into the clearing, only the night insects their the chattering audience. 

It’s a relief to feel the weight of his beskar helmet back upon his head once again. He hadn't been without it long, but the effort of conversing, eating, and planning out the weapons Mayfeld would keep has left him exhausted.

Once the last crate is loaded and everything covered up, Mayfeld jumps down to the ground. "Well, Mando, it's been a pleasure as always."

“Don't you need my help transporting them?"

"I'd rather you fly your old lady ship somewhere that has those _special_ crafting supplies we discussed. For that insane idea of yours, remember?”

“You mean, just in case your new friends let you down?"

"Always best to be prepared."

Din nods. "I can get what's needed."

“It’ll take a while for us to get you the credits," Mayfeld tells him, wincing. "This is a volunteer situation here. We're a little low on-”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“What, you working for free now?”

“Consider it a... donation. For a good cause."

Mayfeld's sarcastic smile melts away, another expression taking its place that Din saw in the village on Sorgan, and Mos Pelgo, and the walled city of Calodan. 

_Gratitude,_ Din thinks That's what it is. And that's why Mayfeld was treating him the way he had been. It wasn't pity. It wasn't sympathy. It was simple gratitude. For his new friends. For his new life. For his new home. 

Din holds out his hand. "Don't get killed before I get back."

Mayfeld takes it. "Same right back at you."


End file.
